Why Exhibit your Photography?

Why Exhibit?

As a photographer; hobbyist or aspiring professional, it’s too easy to amass a catalogue of photos that never see the light of day.

Sure, social media is great for sharing your work but it’s hard, or even impossible, to beat something you and others can touch, feel and enjoy without a layer of technology in-between. There’s also a very important artistic reason….

Visualisation

Picture this – a stunning landscape bathed in perfect light, an interesting street with lots of potential, or perhaps the most amazing model is booked for a portrait session.

After much deliberation and/or years of honing your skills you visualise the exact result based on your style and what comes to you at that moment.

You adjust the camera settings, compose your shot and click the shutter release. Wow! You know you’re onto a winner before even checking the captured image. You continue to shoot and perhaps you further improve or perhaps the 1st shot was ‘The One’. Either way it was as you’d intended from your artistic visualisation.

Later, you pop the kettle on and excitedly wait for your photos to download before starting the edit.

The edit is complete and you’re left with just the image you’d visualised for good reason back at the beginning. If you’re doing well maybe you have several photos based around your visualisation. Oh my, joy of joy!

What now? You post to social media maybe, perhaps even show friends and family on your laptop but that’s where the journey ends. A little anticlimactic some might say and it’s night night to those gems that came about through years of hard work and inspiration on the day.

To fully realise your photography, there is one more step.

Realisation of your photography

Photography as an art is a journey in many ways.

Digital photography does not, by default, create a physical piece of art. It’s undeniable that the tangible qualities of a physical print makes for a more stimulating experience.

The texture of the paper in your hands, the accurate representation of your image without worrying why one screen looks so different to another.

Think about art on-display in a gallery, or even a home. The artist has gone to painstaking lengths so the framing compliments their art. Everything about the framing has to allow the art to shine and be at it’s best. Is your image a dark and moody landscape with stormy skies and a textured grass foreground? Was it dark and moody by choice? Accentuate the mood by using a dark grey frame and why not accentuate the grass textures with a lightly textured paper or mount?

POP, oh that’s looking good. Now you’ve taken your amazing art and moved it from the frame of a phone screen or laptop and elevated it to something truly special.

But I hear you say – why should I share my freshly framed photography?

That’s a good question. It’s easy to say “I’ll get around to it one day”. But will you really? Setting a goal and a timeline that can’t slip is the most powerful motivator, add that to the excitement of finally sharing your photography and no one can stop you!